Romans 11 · a question people ask
"and so all Israel will be saved" (11:26). Who is "all Israel"?
This question is only about 11:25-26. First, what the chapter says: "For I don’t desire you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, so that you won’t be wise in your own conceits, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, and so all Israel will be saved." (11:25-26). The chapter says no more about who "all Israel" is than its own verses do. Christians read these words in three main ways, each resting on verses of Romans, and some hold more than one of them together; these notes choose none. All agree on what the chapter says: "did God reject his people? May it never be!" (11:1), and "To him be the glory for ever! Amen." (11:36). These notes take up only what these verses say, and say nothing about any land, nation, state or conflict, or about any order of events still to come.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
A turning still ahead for Israel
Those who read it this way read all Israel as Israel, the people the chapter has been speaking of, turning in a time still ahead. They point to "a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in" (11:25), to "how much more their fullness!" (11:12), and to the natural branches that will "be grafted into their own olive tree" (11:24).
Romans 11:25 · Romans 11:12 · Romans 11:24
All God's people, from Israel and the Gentiles
Those who read it this way read all Israel as all God's people, from Israel and from the Gentiles together. They point to "For they are not all Israel that are of Israel." (9:6), to "For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek" (10:12), and to the wild olive that was "grafted in among them" (11:17).
Romans 9:6 · Romans 10:12 · Romans 11:17
The remnant of Israel
Those who read it this way read all Israel as the remnant of Israel the chapter speaks of. They point to "at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace" (11:5), and to Paul's words of "those who are my flesh": "may save some of them" (11:14).
Romans 11:5 · Romans 11:14
The verses
“For I don’t desire you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, so that you won’t be wise in your own conceits, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, and so all Israel will be saved. Even as it is written, “There will come out of Zion the Deliverer, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob.”
“I ask then, did God reject his people? May it never be! For I also am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.”
“For of him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen.”